


and everything that I have loved has turned to stone

by The_Resurrection_3D



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Gen, Monster Tom, Nightmares, Scraps, homophobic parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 01:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21329971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Resurrection_3D/pseuds/The_Resurrection_3D
Summary: When Tom is a child, Tord makes him a ring out of cheap, golden wire.
Relationships: Tom & Tord (Eddsworld)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24
Collections: if your muse hadn't killed herself





	and everything that I have loved has turned to stone

When Tom is a child, Tord makes him a ring out of cheap, golden wire. Nothing special; he’s been experimenting with twisting wire—rings, bracelets, small figurines, just one of his many short-lived hobbies. The entire gang has rings to match: Matt loves his the most, always such a fan of jewelry, though his sense of fashion changes faster than the moon; Edd wears his for a while but quickly loses it in the fray of four older brothers and a mom not usually there;

Tom is the only one to keep it. A length of black string that has it dangle just where rib cage ends, when he is young.

Of course he doesn’t wear it during the day—his parents would flip, he knows it, though he’s not yet old enough to really know  _ why _

_ (you should stop hanging around so much with that matt fellow / I can’t believe edd’s mother lets him wear his hair so long, he looks like a girl / are you reading your bible verses every night son?) _

Sometimes, at night, Tom slips the ring onto his finger, before laying his head down on the giant fluffy bunny Matt had won for him their first carnival together. He’ll fall asleep watching the skeleton trees dance on his wall, eyes leaden, swallowing down the urge to climb into his parents’ bed. He’s much too old for it now.

In his dreams Tom feels a deep, _ shredding _ pain throughout his body, that familiar snake crawling into his mouth, down his throat, and he gags on its rich cider taste, gags as it’s filling his stomach, gags as he starts to swell– and then he’ll feel the warm, hard wire of the ring dig into his finger, and suddenly the snake is gone.

* * *

When Tom is growing, he takes his father’s pliers from the drawer and unfolds the ring, widening the band for himself. He half (well, more like three-quarters) expects the shit to snap under his clumsy, cursed fingers, or for it to not work when he slips it on at night, the habit now as ingrained as brushing his teeth, or knowing how to write his name in the dark. Even on the nights where the snake doesn’t come, it feels…comforting. Like how it used to feel to pile all his stuffed animals into his bed, kissing and hugging them goodnight; like someone else is there.

Out of the old folks’ home and into an apartment with Edd; he takes his dad’s pliers. Hides the ring under his bed for when he can’t force himself up off the floor and slides it on with clammy, trembling fingers, biting back bile, vision spotted from the pain how what feels like two mountains trying to burst free from the crust of his skull. 

Then Tord leaves, and Tom throws his ring in the bar’s gutters.

**Author's Note:**

> Started this awhile ago and just posting to procrast- I mean check interest! That's what I meant c: So let me know what you think. Better yet, take it and make it into something your own! (With credit, of course ;P not naming any names...) 
> 
> Been wanting to write some kind of folktale Eddsworld fic, and Tom and Tord fit "The Blood Brothers"..........kinda. Needless to say their relationship would get a lot worse before it gets better :P


End file.
